Invisible Art
by SafraBerries
Summary: When a simple rescue mission goes very wrong very fast, Virgil is injured, Scott doesn't know what to do, John has to keep his family from falling apart, Gordon just wants things to go back to normal, and Alan wishes everyone would stop avoiding a very important issue. (May change if the story goes differently.)
1. Chapter 1

It was supposed to be simple. Just a research facility with one building collapsing and only two scientists trapped inside. They had literally just finished a long, six-hour job at a huge mudslide near a village nestled in an Indian valley. It was on their way back that John had called them to the scene. The plan was for them all to do a fly-by of the scene, Thunderbird Two would touch down, Virgil would hop out and get the two scientists out, then they could go home and take a nap.

And that's what happened, for the most part. The scientists were right by the front door, which was jammed, so Virgil simply cut the hinges off the door and the two came running out, barely a scratch on either of them. They ran to some of the other scientists in the facility who had been watching nervously. The job was done. That should have been it. It was supposed to be that simple.

Then suddenly it wasn't. Suddenly, there was a loud rumble followed by a cloud of dust and debris in the air as the building came crashing down. Suddenly Scott could no longer see his brother, who had been right outside of the building, doing a quick scan to make sure no one else had been inside. Suddenly there were three panicked voices over the comms screaming Virgil's name while Scott was frozen in his seat, just staring where his brother had been only seconds before.

It had taken Alan's voice over his comms, whispering to himself almost, to snap him out of it, "What do we do?"

Scott had landed Thunderbird One as quickly as possible without making the situation worse than it already was. He yelled unnecessarily loud at John to do a scan to find exactly where their brother was and at Gordon to prep the medical bay of Thunderbird Two. John sent him the location of the single pulse in the wreckage of the building. Luckily, it was near the edge, though the dust had not quite settled enough for him to see the bright green and blue of Virgil's International Rescue uniform.

The next part was a little hazy in Scott's memory, but he knew he found his brother in the rubble, because he remembered feeling desperately for Virgil's pulse. Even though the scans showed his brother had one, Scott wanted to feel it for himself under his own fingers because Virgil was never that _still_. Despite being the calmest out of the five brothers, Scott had never seen Virgil completely unmoving. Whether he was playing piano, working on Thunderbird two, or just fiddling with his sleeve, his brother's hands were always doing something. Even in his sleep, Scott knew his brother would reposition his arms often, more often than not he would end up using them as a pillow, his actual one typically getting pushed onto the floor.

So, seeing him just laying there sent Scott's brain into a panic-mode until he felt the steady thumping under his fingers. He had pushed the pieces of concrete off of his brother's body, silently thanking whatever powers that are at play that Virgil hadn't been crushed by one of the many pieces that were bigger than Scott's bed.

At that point, Alan had rushed up to his side, carrying the medical scanner Brains had made and scanned Virgil quickly. They both held their breath until John's voice was in their ears.

"No internal bleeding, thankfully. A couple cracked ribs and a nasty concussion, but nothing too bad. You can take him back to Tracy Island."

Scott let out a relieved sigh. If John was letting them bring Virgil back to the island, it couldn't be that bad. They had loaded him into Thunderbird Two's medical bay and Gordon flew the large ship back to the island, Scott sticking right by its side the whole way.

Brains had the infirmary ready when they got back, immediately going to work as Grandma Tracy forced Scott, Alan, and Gordon out. She let them sit in the hallway, though, going off to make some coffee and hot chocolate. Alan fell asleep on Scott's shoulder after about ten minutes. They were all tired, but Scott couldn't bring himself to fall asleep, and it wasn't just because of the uncomfortable position he was in.

He knew that, logically, there was no way any of them could have prevented it. But that didn't stop him from trying to blame himself. It should have been him instead. Except Scott had been in Thunderbird One, hovering fifty feet in the air. They should have sent Gordon and Alan as back up. Except it had been one of the simplest missions they had ever gone on and the two youngest were hardly able to keep their eyes open after doing hard, manual labor for six hours straight. Someone still should have gone with him. Except Virgil had insisted on going alone, just like Scott himself had done countless times. Virgil didn't deserve this. Except no one ever deserved it, really.

"Stop it, Scott."

He looked up, surprised to hear John's voice in the hallway. His brother was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed. Scott wondered how long he had been lost in his thoughts for John to get all the way down from Thunderbird Five. A quick glance showed that Gordon had fallen asleep, as well, and Scott gave John a puzzled look, "Stop what?"

"Stop blaming yourself," His brother sat across the hallway from him, crossing his legs in front of him. "He's going to be okay."

Scott would have laughed at how well John knew him if his brain didn't feel like it was stuffed with cotton, "I know I couldn't have done anything, but I can't help but think about the what-ifs."

"You can't protect all of us from everything, Scott," John said in that fake-calm tone he used when he was worried but trying not to show it.

Scott bit at his lip as his mind decided to play a memory for him, "Remember the Aurora Generator? Where Virgil and I had to wait out that fog for a few hours?"

John just nodded, seemingly unsure where he was going with that thought. Scott continued, "I was reckless that day. I was trying to take shortcuts and nearly got us both killed more than a few times. I was trying to be Dad, saving the day as fast as I could. But Virgil talked some sense into me and made me realize getting myself killed wasn't helping anyone and I. . . I promised I would keep our family safe. I promised him I'd keep you all safe and I couldn't."

"Scott. . . You don't have to keep us all safe. We keep each other safe. That's how a team works. No, that's how a family works."

Scott could feel John's blue-green gaze on him, even though he was determined to look anywhere but his brother's face. He didn't have to answer, thankfully. He was saved when the door to the infirmary opened and a nervous-looking Brain's stepped out. Scott shook Alan awake and John did the same for Gordon. They all rose to their feet while Grandma Tracy and Kayo appeared around the corner.

"How is he?" Kayo asked.

"I-I've bandaged his ribs and done a complete scan of his b-brain to check for damage," Brains started hesitantly.

Scott's eyes narrowed involuntarily, "What is it, Brains?"

The man shifted from one foot to the other, "There s-seems to be substantial damage to his optic n-nerves. I won't know for sure how b-bad it is until he w-wakes up."

There was a moment of silence that was broken by Alan, "He's blind?"

"There are a l-lot more tests I need to d-do, but there is a high ch-chance that whatever damage is th-there is irreversible."

Scott felt like his heart was in his throat. He was surprised Alan couldn't hear it, because Scott could barely hear John and Kayo discussing with Brains what he already knows from the tests he's done so far over the loud thumping in his ears. His little brother was _blind_.


	2. Chapter 2

Virgil knew he wasn't alone. He had always been able to tell when someone was watching him. You don't survive growing up with four brothers by being a heavy sleeper. His mind felt groggy, though. It took him much longer to wake up than it usually did. But when he did finally fight his way out of the deep sleep, his eyes opened to more darkness. He blinked rapidly a few times, but nothing changed.

He reached subconsciously for the lamp he knew was at his bedside table, wondering how he had gotten home and in bed. His hand met air, however, instead of his lamp and he cursed under his breath as his hand hit a thin metal pole. He cringed mentally as a loud crash sounded and he heard some shuffling in the darkness.

"Virgil?" He recognized Scott's voice as a hand was placed tentatively on his left wrist.

He looked around for his brother's face but saw nothing but black. He heard the click of a lamp and a fuzzy white shape appeared to his left. He looked at it and squinted, but nothing changed about the picture. Just a blob of white light in a void of black.

"Scott?" He was starting to panic a little. "Scott, what's going on?"

He was surprised when John answered instead of his older brother, "What uh, what do you remember?"

His brain only dedicated a few moments to wondering why John wasn't up in Thunderbird Five before flooding him with memories of the six-hour rescue in India before stopping by the research facility in Spain to help some scientists trapped in a building that was falling apart, "The research facility. But we all got out. I remember getting them out."

"The building collapsed and you hit your head," John said carefully. "Brains said you damaged your optic nerves."

It took his apparently concussed brain a bit longer than usual to remember what his optic nerves did and realize how that related to the black void he saw, "How bad is it?"

"He said we wouldn't know for sure until you woke up and we did a few more tests," John said hesitantly. "But it's not good, Virg."

Virgil didn't know what to think. His mind kept jumping from one thought to another faster than a speeding bullet train. What if he never saw anything other than this void ever again? He couldn't do his job anymore. What would he do with his life? There was his music and art, maybe. He could relearn how to play piano without seeing, he had always learned new songs better by ear than sheet music, anyways. But seeing is kind of an important part of painting. He would never see the sun setting over the ocean again. He would never see the beautiful smears of pink, purple, orange, and navy that he had painted too many times to count. He didn't want to forget his brothers' faces. He didn't want to remember them the way they were now forever, never getting to see Alan's features mature.

"Virgil?" It was Scott's tentative voice that made his thoughts pause long enough for him to ask one more question.

"Where's Gordon and Alan?" The answer to that question would determine what he did next.

"Um," John seemed a little confused. "In their rooms, probably. It's four in the morning, they're probably asleep. We can call them down if you want."

Virgil shook his head, "No. They're good up there."

And then he let himself cry.

It started as the few tears he had been holding back until he had confirmation that his youngest brothers weren't going to walk in on him having a breakdown. Then a sob caught in his throat and Scott seemingly stood to wrap Virgil in his arms. His chest gave a twinge of pain from the action of sitting up and Virgil barely spared a moment to note that he must have cracked a rib before he fully sobbed into his older brother's chest.

Another set of arms was put around him at a bit of an awkward angle, but Virgil appreciated the gesture nonetheless. Scott was muttering under his breath, something that Virgil couldn't really understand. Something along the lines of "It'll be alright" and he figured Scott was saying it to reassure himself just as much as Virgil.

He wasn't sure how long they stayed like that. He knew he stopped crying eventually, but no one made any move to untangle themselves from each other. Virgil knew for him it was because once they pulled apart, he would have to face his new reality and he wasn't sure if he was quite ready for that yet. He wasn't sure what was running through John's mind, but he knew for a fact Scott was finding some way to blame himself. It was one of his brother's fatal flaws. His brain couldn't decide what to focus on. He was worried about Scott's mental health, he was scared about what the future held, and he just focused on keeping his eyes closed because then he could pretend that was the reason all he saw was a black void.

John was the first to pull away as Virgil heard the faint sound of joints popping. He figured his brother was stretching out his limbs from being in such an awkward position for so long. Virgil pulled himself from Scott's arms, leaning back on the slightly raised bed so that he was in a half-sitting up position. He wiped at his eyes and accepted the tissue that was placed near his hand to blow his nose.

He looked back to his left at the fuzzy white blob he knew was the standing lamp in the corner of the infirmary, "I can see the light."

"That's something, right?" Scott said hopefully, though it sounded like more of a question than anything.

"I don't know," John replied. "Brains said we should go to a specialist on the mainland to get a proper diagnosis. Once you're feeling up to it, of course."

As much as Virgil wanted to know exactly what the rest of his life was going to look like, he was also terrified of what the answer would be. Going to a doctor made it real. Going to the doctor meant he couldn't fool himself into believing it wasn't that bad and he would be able to see once more. Virgil wasn't a fool. He knew the fact that he only seemed to have light perception wasn't a good sign.

There was no way he was telling Scott and John all that, though, and he really didn't want to think about any of it for the time being. Besides all that, a deep ache was beginning to form behind his eyes and that in and of itself was making it hard to form a single coherent thought. So, he just muttered something about going back to sleep and hoped his brothers understood what he wanted. He closed his eyes and the single white blur disappeared.


End file.
